144 Quotes by L.R. Knost

It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.

Taking care of myself doesn't mean 'me first.' It means 'me, too.

Respecting a child teaches them that even the smallest, most powerless, most vulnerable person is worthy of respect. And that is a lesson our world desperately needs to learn.

Let love always lead you to listen more deeply, understand more fully, connect more securely, forgive more freely, communicate more clearly, and respond more gently.

The belief that children must be punished to learn better behaviors is illogical. Children learn to roll, crawl, walk, talk, read, and other complex behaviors without a need for punishment. Why, then, wouldn't the same gentle guidance, support, and awareness of developmental capabilities that parents employ to help their little ones learn those complex skills also work to help them learn to pet the cat gently and draw on paper instead of walls?

Children are compassionate by nature. Engaging their compassion with communication and connection instead of igniting their self-preservation with threats and punishments is not only more effecting in guiding their behavior, it's also more effective in growing their humanity.

To need to be seen, to be heard, to be understood, is simply to be human.

Telling a child that something that matters to them isn't important doesn't convince them it doesn't matter. It just convinces them that it doesn't matter to you and often makes them feel like they don't matter, either. Remember, caring about the little things that matter to little people creates big connections.

We don't lose ourselves in parenthood. We find parts of ourselves we never knew existed.